The Black Pearl By Scot O' Dell. It is about a boy named Ramon who becomes a pearl salesman in his fathers business. The boy finds a huge pearl in the lagoon of the monster Manta Diablo. Worth so much money that the four huge pearl salesmen in their town cannot pay for it. The pearl seems great but soon causes many misfortunes. The story is set in a town called La Paz somewhere in Baja California. I am guessing that it is in the eighteen hundreds because there are no cars and all the boats are either canoes, or sail boats. The main characters are the boy named Ramon, who is sixteen years old and works in his fathers pearl business called Salazar and Son. An Indian named Luzon, who teaches Ramon how to dive for pearls, but was against Ramon diving in the lagoon of the Manta Diablo because Luzon fears the creature. The last main character is a man who is called The Sevillano. The Sevillano is a very strong man who claims he has done incredible things all across the world and is not very good friends with Ramon. I would recommend this book. It was sort of slow at the beginning, but then it got really interesting. I would recommend it to boys and girls at the age of twelve because even though it wasn't very long, it was kind of complicated. Anyone who enjoys mysteries would probably like this book.
the aura of a legend, the inttensity of a vision, the headlong force of stripped-down keyed-up fiction
My seventh grade lit teacher read us this book, and nearly the entire class loved it. If you like Island of the Blue Dolphins, you will like this book as well.
A 16-year-old boy does battle with an enormous devilfish that guards a rare, black pearl. PW said this 1968 Newbery Honor Book reverberates with "proud admiration of the courage of the human spirit." --Publishers Weekly
1967 Award winning title from noted author Scott O'Dell. Still worth reading.
16 year old Ramon hunts for the Manta Diablo, the Devilfish. But he runs into more trouble than he bargained for. . . classic Scott O'Dell.
